Although the new attraction is more encompassing and ambitious than California Adventure's Monsters Inc.: Mike & Sulley to the Rescue, it doesn't redefine the dark ride genre like the Anaheim theme park's Toy Story Midway Mania.

During a preview ride last week, I found Ursula’s lair to be my favorite scene by far, with the 12-foot-wide villainess squishing and bulging as she sang “Poor Unfortunate Souls” with a mix of menace and wit.

From a technical standpoint, I was most impressed with Ariel, considering the amazing amount of animatronics stuffed into her diminutive figure. In the opening grotto scene, Ariel’s mesmerizing animated hair flowed as if it had a life of its own, much like Donald Trump’s pompadour.

I was pleased to see only a limited number of video screens throughout the ride. They were used to add atmosphere and propel storytelling rather than in place of animatronics.

Ultimately, Ariel’s Undersea Adventure felt more like a theme park ride than an all-encompassing journey through the movie. I blame the long and bare transitions between scenes for chopping up the story and breaking the continuity. Along several stretches, riders see only featureless rock-work with sparse outcroppings of seaweed.

Also lacking were the smaller details often discovered on repeat rides – such as the treasures stuffed into Ariel’s grotto or the puckering frogs in the "Kiss the Girl" scene. Hopefully future “plussing” by the folks atWalt Disney Imagineering will fill in some of the blanks.

I found the pace of the clam-shell vehicles to be particularly plodding on preview rides during the attraction’s test-and-adjust phase. Hopefully the speed will pick up when the ride officially opens Friday.

While the new Little Mermaid attraction will likely never be a must-ride for me, it’s a much-needed addition to California Adventure. What’s sad and disappointing is that it took Disney 10 years to add the kind of traditional dark ride that should have been one of the basic building blocks of the park on opening day.

An identical version of the ride, called Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid, is expected to open in 2013 at the Magic Kingdom in Florida.

The idea for a Little Mermaid dark ride has been in the so-called blue-sky stages of creative brainstorming at Walt Disney Imagineering since the movie premiered in 1989 -- from rough artist sketches to scale-model mock-ups to fully realized concepts.

The new Star Tours attraction that will soon debut at Disneyland adds several layers of 3-D realism to the 1980s-era simulator ride, making the experience less like watching a movie and more like being in the middle of the action.

Blending elements from "Drumline," "Stomp" and "Glee," the new music-centric "Mickey's Soundsational Parade" opening at Disneyland on Friday delivers on its fun and energetic party premise without feeling forced or contrived.